babbledog: User Profile

Posted 2 hours ago

McCain seems to have made a choice based on pretty shallow, cynical considerations. Hint: it's not a sophisticated media strategy if the person on the street can tell they're being manipulated, and doesn't like it.
in Sarah Palin, Alaska's GILF - CafePress

Posted 3 hours ago

sweet card
in Review roundup: AMD’s Radeon 4870 X2 delivers

Posted 1 day ago

Wow, what a loss. I loved the Anthology when it came out -- it transformed my understanding of the Beatles, which I had thought was pretty complete up to that point. It's a great legacy.
in Beatles pay tribute to Beatles Anthology producer Chips Chipperfield

Posted 3 days ago

a gap between perception and essence
in Apple Store

Posted 3 days ago

Many people have noted: if you use a lot of coupons, you'll end up eating a lot of worthless food, since those are the kinds of mass market brands that put muscle behind coupon promotions. Coupons for organics and healthy food are pretty hard to come by.
in Thrift

Posted 3 days ago

Happy Birthday to the Material Girl.
in Madonna is 50!

Posted 4 days ago

http://cryptome.org/ru-aims-georgia.htm
in Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline

Posted 7 days ago

"Self-proclaimed "greatest prank evar" required 18 months, $390 million in prep work"
in Obama Names Rick Astley as Running Mate

Posted 7 days ago

Yahoo! Buzz has really come out of nowhere and garnered an impressive mass audience, compared to the others mentioned
in Yahoo opens Digg rival to all publishers

Posted 7 days ago

LHC microblackholes FTW!
in Reddit Takes a Breather

Posted 8 days ago

xavier: I agree with you totally: bullfighting is deeply offensive.
in Lithuanian basketball players or bull fighters…

Posted 8 days ago

hm, it's down.
in The Treadmill Desk: Exercise for the Sake of Hacking

Posted 9 days ago

Looks like you're an accessory to thoughtcrime, citizen. Please step away from the keyboard and sit comfortably. Representatives of the state will be by shortly to begin your reeducation.
in MBTA Court Documents from the "Subway Hack"

Posted 9 days ago

except for the painful landing-on-the-ground portion of the exercise
in Kite Surfing Tropical Storm Fay

Posted 10 days ago

they may sit forever in the courts of boston .. they're the kids who never returned
in MIT student defends MBTA hacking research

Posted 19 days ago

"Bla bla bla Georgia mumble Iran bla bla Nucular bla bla. It's miller time!"
in Cheeky George Bush works up a sweat getting to know the women's volleyball team

Posted 20 days ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_PuAqRQLKA .. some fine, fine character acting by Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno
in Electric Company typography

Posted 22 days ago

now that I see the 'bus rage' advertising connection, I have to wonder whether this wasn't a viral PR buy gone wrong. or right, depending on your definition of brand engagement and awareness.
in Greyhound scraps ads after Canada bus beheading

Posted 24 days ago

it's only $7M apiece
in "Brangelina" babies finally unveiled on Web

Posted 25 days ago

Interesting. Going by their positions during the primary, you'd think that picking Hillary would be a move toward the center (not as much as picking a pro-life VP, but ... :) ) But I think the risk of galvanizing the far right and reviving their enthusiasm for McCain would be too high a price to pay.
in Picking 'Genuinely Pro-Life' Running Mate Would Be 'Revolutionary Decision' By Obama, Opinion Piece Says

Posted 28 days ago

This is exactly what I said when I established "breezy kilt thursdays" and nobody took me seriously.
in Shorts Crack the Code

Posted 28 days ago

wow.
in Man found sobbing, naked after wife dies from fall

Posted 28 days ago

"Otisburg? OTISBURG?!"
in Map of Misery

Posted 29 days ago

http://www.balmex.com .. no contest
in What's the best diaper rash cream if you have reeeeeaaally bad diaper rash?

Posted 29 days ago

it's a meta-FAIL
in Bystander culture

Posted 32 days ago

As has been noted elsewhere, WTF is this doing in the Style and Leisure section? C'mon, New York Times.
in Blogging’s Glass Ceiling - NYTimes.com

Posted 32 days ago

It's still true, though, what the Rain Man said: "Quantas never crash."
in Qantas emergency landing could have been caused by spilled coffee

Posted 33 days ago

Aaaaaand.... Google walks away. So frustrating!
in Google In Final Negotiations To Acquire Digg For “Around $200 Million”

Posted 35 days ago

"Kobierowski was taken to Rhode Island Hospital where he was put in the detoxification unit and sedated." SEDATED?! You have to ask if that was strictly necessary.
in RI cops arrest man with .491 blood alcohol level

Posted 42 days ago

sweet, sweet bacon
in BACON

Posted 42 days ago

genius.
in Law Blog - WSJ.com : Covington Partner Demonstrates Treatment of Detainees

Posted 46 days ago

is it just me, or does the trefoil CPF logo make anyone a little nervous? :) it seems like an inappropriate visual joke to be carrying through security
in Checkpoint friendly laptop bags will soon be a reality

Posted 47 days ago

Tanned, rested, and ready! And better qualified than any body.
in Nixon's Head 4 President in 08

Posted 48 days ago

music to accompany a "slow food" banquet
in As Slow As Possible

Posted 49 days ago

A classic essay about fake money.
in Why the global financial system is about to collapse

Posted 49 days ago

People watch golf on TV because people put golf on TV. If people put cockroach races on TV, people would watch that too. And they would wear teeny tiny nike swooshes on their carapaces.
in Woods will become world's first billionaire athlete by 2010

Posted 50 days ago

tastes like chicken
in Hairy hybrid: Half grizzly, half polar bear

Posted 50 days ago

Bloomberg does a better job than anyone at filtering and presenting this kind of news. I hope the recent shakeups in their news organization don't change that.
in Spying on the World's Largest Power Utility

Posted 50 days ago

If you're into constitutional theory, this paper and the recent supreme court decision about habeas corpus rights at gitmo make good reading. Sovereignty is a slippery thing. Good thing we're not about building global empires any more!
in Eleven Months and a Hundred Yards Short of Citizenship

Posted 51 days ago

2008 isn't over yet, but "Thriller" is still a safe choice ;)
in Geeky list time: Pick an album for every year you've been alive | The A.V. Club

Posted 60 days ago

what a great guy
in Manny Ramirez involved in clubhouse scrape -

Posted 60 days ago

They clearly didn't get Frank Oz to reprise the voice of Yoda. That kills it for me, right there.
in "Star Wars: Clone Wars," trailer 2

Posted 60 days ago

or stealing the dead themselves. or killing people while stealing from them. I think someone hasn't really worked out the full matrix of behaviors here.
in Economic Slump Leads to Resurgence of Grave Robbing

Posted 60 days ago

Second runner-up in the "netflix alternative business plans" competition.
in Rent-a-Dildo.com - How It Works

Posted 61 days ago

backstory: http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/06/moon-over-a-rui.html
in Wil Wheaton's Hawaii Vacation photos

Posted 61 days ago

http://www.shedworking.co.uk/index.html
in Build your next home office in a shed

Posted 62 days ago

I guess this is why so many great Canadian comedians have felt obliged to come south of the border to enjoy freedom of speech, eh? Also to make money and avoid freezing to death.
in Comic faces human rights hearing in B.C. after lesbian jokes

Posted 63 days ago

heh
in Artificial brain predicts death-row executions

Posted 63 days ago

the good news: you can live forever. the bad news: we all have to grow a really long beard.
in Aubrey de Grey: Why we age and how we can avoid it

Posted 63 days ago

obama photographed wearing iconic white earbuds == "powerful brand synergy"
in Barack Obama and his iPod: Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen

Posted 63 days ago

I love the idea that google's aggregate data is a more accurate guide to what the public believes and does than you can get by asking the public what it believes and does. The slippery slope toward a government panopticon just got a little more slippery.
in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Orgy : Sexual hypocrisy and the Internet.

Posted 63 days ago

pretty trivial. the regime's engineers have a lot of experience building large concrete edifices :)
in N. Korea destroys nuclear reactor tower

Posted 64 days ago

nice concept, not taken far enough. I'd like to see a book that comes with, say, a sampling of beverages to be enjoyed with each chapter. or maybe a collection of unusual hats. you would wear the appropriate hats as you worked your way through the book. readers would recognize each other on the street. "oh look, three more chapter sevens."
in Neal Stephenson's new book, Anathem, will come with a CD of music.

Posted 66 days ago

This was nice to see.
in Laurel and Hardy: Final Footage, 1956

Posted 66 days ago

"To keep the Nutraloaf test authentic, I mandated that my guests eat with their hands; plus, after sneaking in that taste of Illinois earlier in the day, I was worried someone might stab me if I let them use utensils." heh
in Taste-Testing Nutraloaf : The prison food that just might be unconstitutionally bad.

Posted 67 days ago

Tragedy at the racetrack .. a sport that kills drivers nearly every year, and yet the drivers and fans keep coming back, for all the reasons that xViPiR cited when he posted this video.
in YouTube - Scott Kalitta Fatal Crash 6/21/08

Posted 68 days ago

Cool! I love interactive fiction. It's sad when a literary form is completely dissed because it's not commercially viable.
in 1up.com's Top 5 Introductory Interactive Fiction Games

Posted 69 days ago

in case you havent heard, the dot com industry is very hot right now and its only getting hotter in the future. also, its not like people are going to stop using the telephone, eh? everyone needs a telephone. it's safe as houses.
in Canadian court lets pension fund buy Bell Canada

Posted 70 days ago

The Babbledog team would like some of these. Thanks in advance.
in Lollyphile: the best & most interesting candy in the world!

Posted 70 days ago

love it.
in Garkov: Garfield + Markov chains

Posted 70 days ago

Yahoo's imminent demise has become a true internet meme. This one just keeps getting louder.
in Yahoo Reorg Details

Posted 70 days ago

I am humbled.
in Gaudi's Sagrada Familia cathedral in LEGO bricks!

Posted 70 days ago

corbou in lego .. ok, fine, whatever. you wanna impress me, i want to see Gaudi work executed in lego.
in LEGO replica of Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye

Posted 71 days ago

that's a new wrinkle
in Guy kidnaps ex-girlfriend to get ironing done

Posted 71 days ago

Why can't we get this right?
in Private education: The Swedish model

Posted 72 days ago

watching movies with a font fondler is a terrible experience anyway. it's as if they have typographic tourette's. you're sitting through a quiet scene, and the camera pans across a document, and they snort and yell out "Caslon! CASLON!?"
in Mark Simonson notes that the period typography in the Indiana Jones...

Posted 72 days ago

just elected to congress from maine. hasn't been there enough to learn bad habits.
in Why Obama should pick Hillary Clinton as veep

Posted 72 days ago

a bombin' nation, yessir
in 13 Things I Learned From the Celtics Championship

Posted 72 days ago

just for symmetry
in bSocial Networks Market Lodge Create personalized online stores on social networks

Posted 73 days ago

Seems like a lot of people went out and bought them a big ole television.
in Crazy ways people are spending their stimulus checks

Posted 73 days ago

"A political party built around victimhood will stop at nothing to sabotage its chances of actually achieving its goals." --anon
in Delegate to Democrat Convention: I’m Voting for McCain!

Posted 74 days ago

The miniature golf industry obviously failed to deliver enough lobbying dollars to avoid getting their very own line-item.
in Suggested changes for the Americans with Disabilities Act

Posted 74 days ago

any PR firm who would take this idiot's money in an attempt to boost his visibility to McCain's search team should be taken out behind the barn and killed with a dull axe.
in Brownback: We Depend on Dads

Posted 74 days ago

I got a really cool pair of shorts with a big pocket for my blackberry. My kids all donated blood plasma for six months to save up to buy them, so it counts as a thoughtful gesture. (No, they didn't. I'm joking.)
in What's the best thing to do for Dad on Father's Day?

Posted 77 days ago

I love this press release! It's so authentic! And it makes me hungry!
in McDonald's(R) USA Gives Moms Unprecedented Access to Learn How Chicken McNuggets(R) Are Made

Posted 78 days ago

ps eat more chicken
in "Then you and the chicken die like one."

Posted 78 days ago

At first, I thought the Democrat National Convention was being moved from Denver. Wow, thought I, that's change we can believe in! Still, pretty impressive demonstration of executive-leadership-not-washington-politics-as-usual meme-fu.
in Obama moves DNC operations to Chicago

Posted 79 days ago

The grandfather of great american beers only manages to pull a 4% rating (out of 100%).
in Pabst Blue Ribbon [ratebeer.com]

Posted 79 days ago

"As far as the power grid analogy, one of the “Cloud Customers” on the panel, Carolyn Lawson, Chief Information Officer for the California Public Utilities Commission, made a funny quip in her talk about how it might not be the most appropriate and convincing analogy given some of the recent history of California’s power grid." heh
in Enterprise Web 2.0 Conference

Posted 79 days ago

See also: Google Blog
in A new flavor of Google Trends

Posted 79 days ago

I'm like, "I didn't know Michael had a sister!"
in Jordan's Sister Goes Topless

Posted 79 days ago

Give. Me. A. Break.
in IPhone 3G: It's not world peace, but it's close

Posted 80 days ago

http://www.collegeafterhours.com/content/media/wewantbeernow.jpg
in Craft Beer

Posted 80 days ago

eventually they erode and become the bottoms of oceans.
in Mountains!

Posted 81 days ago

tiny monkey says: ralph wiggum '08! he's younger than mccain, and he can beat obama by a nose.
in May Day Contest: Caption This Photo

Posted 81 days ago

Kinda flat. And apparently the price of sugar and grease is going up.
in Krispy Kreme Doughnut Earnings: Whadya think?

Posted 82 days ago

Neat. Resveratrol may work by draining the body of excess minerals like copper and calcium, triggering the genetic response. So you might be trading longer life for, say, brittle bones and impaired nerve regeneration. What to do!
in Red Wine Straight from Fountain of Youth

Posted 82 days ago

For context, $1.4B is also the average market capitalization of the companies in the Russel 2000 index. Can I make it a little more concrete? Imagine blowing up every Krispy Kreme donut store in America. Six times. Ok, you're getting up towards $1.4B in damages. Please, nobody actually do that.
in B2 Stealth Bomber Crashes Video

Posted 84 days ago

Yup.
in I can has a carrot?

Posted 84 days ago

may the best $100 hamburger win!
in Death of the $100 Hamburger (by Jeremy Zawodny)

Posted 84 days ago

"Charity shops are not being charitable nowadays: many are too choosy & turn down slightly soiled items.This is unacceptable & I have ceased to support them on that account."

--ian cheese"
in spEak You’re bRanes

Posted 85 days ago

Time to digg asylum's homage to revision3's nod to asylum's bacon pictures? Is the bubble over yet? Can I have some bacon?
in Asylum Gives Props to Rev3 Giving a Shout-Out to Asylum's Collection of Bacon Pictures

Posted 85 days ago

Suddenly this becomes a really interesting experiment. If the Alexa numbers start to break Instapundit's way in the coming weeks, it'll almost certainly be an artifact of this recruitment.
in Left-right asymmetry in the online world?

Posted 86 days ago

They have met the enemy, and he is them.
in HillaryClinton.com - blogHillary

Posted 87 days ago

i blame it on global warming
in Penguins steal amazing victory from Detroit in triple overtime

Posted 87 days ago

Unless your chocolate tastes exactly mirror those of the other people who share your household, you are still likely to find half-bitten maple cremes at the bottom of the box.
in Only Sheep Enjoy Whitman's Samplers

Posted 87 days ago

Fifteen easy steps... sigh
in Your Privacy Is An Illusion: Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan private pics exposed by Yahoo hack

Posted 88 days ago

The proof itself is kinda elegant. For a congressman :)
in President James Garfield's Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

Posted 89 days ago

All of the suggestions Earl gives are spot-on. Simple due diligence.
in Renesys Blog: Securing the Root

Posted 89 days ago

She had ultrasounds at regular checkups, according to the article. Either they need a new (slightly less blind) ultrasonographer, or they need a less gullible news editorial staff. It's a small town, maybe they're the same guy!
in Miracle Baby

Posted May 30, 2008

My favorite of the rules is #8, designed to frustrate homeschoolers (who dominate the bee, obviously): "The speller must not bypass or circumvent normal school activity to study for spelling bees. The Scripps National Spelling Bee defines normal school activity as adherence to at least four courses of study other than language arts, spelling, Latin, Greek, vocabulary, and etymology for at least four hours per weekday for 34 of the 38 weeks between September 1, 2007, and May 24, 2008."
in Bettors Guide to the Spelling Bee

Posted May 29, 2008

It's called "regression to the mean," Tiger. Sorry 'bout that!
in Tiger Woods' Daughter a Bitter, Bitter Disappointment

Posted May 28, 2008

The money quote from this article is "I bet that workers in this industry are fairly mobile too."
in Would a Porn Tax Hurt Sales? - Freakonomics

Posted May 28, 2008

I love moon pies. Not the banana flavor, though. Chocolate.
in Guns don't Kill people, Moon Pies well they don't either.

Posted May 27, 2008

This is really worth reading.
in It's The Networks, Stupid

Posted May 27, 2008

Eerie!
in Obama: He's Ready To Tell Us His Secret

Posted May 27, 2008

as in, a single, immense work of body art, so large that it exists across the bodies of tens of thousands of military men. multiple generations of british soldiers, each bearing a small piece of the complete work
in RoyalTournament.org

Posted May 24, 2008

(yeah right)
in Waiting For Somebody To Get Shot Is Not A Campaign Strategy

Posted May 23, 2008

"Anybody saying the rulers nay risks being tasered and gassed, beaten and jailed, demonized and prosecuted. Folks, that whole bunch in Minneapolis is not worth one Ron Paulian fingernail, let alone a busted skull. Watch the sickening festival on TV, unless you are a delegate or alternate. Even then, you have to be careful. Your enemies are fascists."
in Crashing the Party in Minneapolis

Posted May 23, 2008

Hat tip to Instapundit.
in Homeowner Shoots Self While Burglarizing Home

Posted May 22, 2008

the guy who came in second is claiming that he actually had the majority of the popular vote. the supreme court has been notified. this ain't over yet.
in David Cook wins American Idol

Posted May 21, 2008

The problem is much worse than you fear.
in David Bowie Mugshot

Posted May 21, 2008

Are you talking about the second dot com bubble? :)
in Facebook Is A Privacy Virus

Posted May 21, 2008

This is a nice narrative but I think HRC's triangulation side-step to the right (when she thought she was facing McCain in November) will make it hard for her to become the New Voice of Liberalism in the Senate. Stranger reinventions have happened .. this is America after all.
in Rex Nutting: Is Hillary Clinton the new Ted Kennedy?

Posted May 21, 2008

illegal interception of private communications by an agent of the state .. hmmmmmm ...
in If you're going to sell weed in high-school...

Posted May 21, 2008

"If you pick and choose which tenets of a religion apply to you, is it still a religion?" A universal question.
in A Jihad for Love: A Jihad for Love

Posted May 21, 2008

Babbledog loves Korea! 응!
in 김인호돼지박사 한국형우주관 응^응=응 우주화시대 응원해주세요

Posted May 21, 2008

if his tongue has a point, it would actually be interesting.
in You Know What You Can Do With That Tongue? Make Some Art With It!

Posted May 19, 2008

Hey, you don't want to be the last kid on the block running his own copy of L root! :)
in Identity Theft Hits the Root Name Servers

Posted May 19, 2008

I didn't ask any other country's OK before I did it .. now that I know, I'll be sure to ask first. How rude of me
in Obama: An End to All-You-Can-Eat?

Posted May 18, 2008

don't they have ants in canada? seems like insects should be able to reduce most any size mammal to clean bones in a matter of days to months.
in Blue whale, buried since 1987, exhumed in eastern Canada for move to Vancouver museum

Posted May 16, 2008

It will be interesting to see how they develop the case. A lot of uncharted territory here, a lot of precedents to be set (for better or for worse).
in Mother indicted for MySpace hoax

Posted May 16, 2008

Look on the bright side: she didn't commit suicide.
in Spitzer Still Free, But Hooker Booker Faces 25 Years [Justice]

Posted May 16, 2008

Campaign staff line up to perform their own dental x-rays after Blue Cross premium check bounces
in Jay's Caption of the Week Contest

Posted May 16, 2008

It would be good for New Hampshire if these folks succeeded in rolling back Massachusett's income tax -- for one thing, many NH folks are driving south in order to make a living and end up paying it anyway. For another, Massachusetts would have to massively increase their sales taxes to compensate -- and we don't have one of those either. More money to our border stores. Finally, it would create a great attraction for high-wage people from all over to migrate to Greater Boston instead of, say, New York (the city so nice they tax you two or three times for the privilege of living there).
in Activists push to repeal Massachusetts state income tax

Posted May 16, 2008

This is intriguing, if true. By reciting the entire Quran, of course, you're going to recite this Surah, which is worth reciting a third of the Quran. Deep recursion.
in Reward of reciting Surah Ikhlaas 3 times equal to whole Quran?

Posted May 15, 2008

Everything old is new again! (McCain's campaign song)
in Huckabee reenters the race?!?!

Posted May 15, 2008

Truly amazing and inspiring demonstration of democratic principals. For a country recovering from a devastating cyclone, where hundreds of thousands of people are dead or missing, and the infrastructure wiped out, to achieve better than 99% voter participation is just literally incredible. You go, Burma!
in Myanmar new constitution ratified - People's Daily Online

Posted May 15, 2008

Just when people say the greatest days of our species are behind us .. someone proves him wrong.
in A Bra For Your Bum

Posted May 14, 2008

jessica: if you mix a shirley temple with a guinness, you are, in fact, approximating moxie.
in Meet NHPR's Brady Carlson during WebNOB, Tuesday (5/13), Jillian's in Manchester, 6-8 p

Posted May 13, 2008

oh oh oh it hurts. so painful.
in T Mobile: Listen To The Most Pointless Customer Service Call Ever

Posted May 13, 2008

However, she was eaten shortly after the camera crew left.
in West Virginia Voters Speak Out

Posted May 13, 2008

ouch.
in Clinton Backers Predicting 90-10 West Virginia Blowout

Posted May 12, 2008

Can anyone doubt at this point that we love in a dictatorship!!? The terrorists have truly won.
in Florida Man Ticketed For Wearing Speedo On Beach

Posted May 10, 2008

After you sign the petition, you should also wear the sticker to show your support.
in Urgent Call for Action -- Tell the Bush Administration to Protect the Polar Bear

Posted May 10, 2008

Boston! Lilacs! Morris dancing! REFRESHMENTS! What's not to love.
in Arnold Arboretum - Lilac Sunday

Posted May 10, 2008

Stickers? Did someone say STICKERS?
in Suicide Cult Phase Reached By Clinton Campaign

Posted May 09, 2008

"As an aid to workers in Myanmar, Direct Relief International has released this KML file showing all of the Myanmar Ministry of Health facilities (over 700 sites) using data from the WHO 2002 Global Health Atlas survey. They used the spreadsheet mapper tool to make the collection."
in Many Visualizations of Myanmar Disaster for Google Earth

Posted May 09, 2008

Here's a great followup on this thread, noting how close he came, relative to the other polling. Score one for the methodology! http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/mp_20080507_8254.php
in Electoral Projections Done Right: North Carolina Prediction: Obama by Double Digits

Posted May 09, 2008

Google is also supporting this via Google Checkout, quick and easy: http://www.google.com/myanmarcyclone/
in Support UNICEF's Emergency Programs in Myanmar

Posted May 09, 2008

whoa
in Avery youngest player to commit to Cats

Posted May 09, 2008

Some day soon, you'll get email from Chevrolet because your tire pressure is low on the driver's side rear. "Just trying to keep you safe, as a valued customer! Here's a $10 coupon for a rotation and inspection." Thanks OnStar.
in ELCO Chevrolet acquires Moore Automotive Cadillac franchise

Posted May 09, 2008

See also: http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080509/FRONTPAGE/805090316
in How do you fix a broken school district?

Posted May 09, 2008

I'm powerfully tempted to trigger Godwin's Law to end this thread.
in Meatless Like Me : Vegetarian Myths, Debunked

Posted May 08, 2008

Check it out at http://www.nowhampshire.com .. pretty cool!
in Now! Hampshire

Posted May 08, 2008

"Sure, I can get you more interviews, but you have to stop referring to your ex-coworkers as 'flying monkeys.'"
in Come up with a caption!!

Posted May 07, 2008

"Howard Dean: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) 'ELLO CAMPAIGN!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your Three AM alarm call!"
in Look, matey, I know a dead campaign when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.

Posted May 07, 2008

that's just the moment at which the photos were taken, dude
in Best tattoo ever.

Posted May 07, 2008

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120995103004666569.html
in Dartmouth Prof Sues Students For Being Mean to Her

Posted May 06, 2008

she's vanished down the memory hole
in Salon Mothers Who Think | Different hero, different war

Posted May 06, 2008

I would have to dig out the mixer, which I never use. I don't have the musclepower to turn out good meringue without one, sadly.
in Meringues: Coconut Meringue Cake | Submitted By: Carol

Posted May 06, 2008

Laptops must be intelligence-gathering target number one. doesn't anyone out there know how to use encrypted filesystems?
in Interpol Confirms Authenticity Of Raul Reyes's Computer Files

Posted May 06, 2008

I plan to race through the streets of manchester, new hampshire yelling WOOOOOOO with dollar bills in my fists and falling out of my coat pockets, like in the cartoons
in Find Out The Date You'll Get Your Stimulus Refund

Posted May 06, 2008

¡sʞuɐɥʇ ˙sʎɐp ǝsǝɥʇ ɟo ǝuo uoıʇɐzılɐuoıʇɐuɹǝʇuı uɐılɐɹʇsnɐ oʇ ʇǝƃ oʇ ʇuɐǝɯ pɐɥ ı
in ˙uʍop ǝpısdn ʇxǝʇ ɹnoʎ dılɟ oʇ ǝʇıs looɔ ɐ sı ǝɹǝɥ

Posted May 05, 2008

Prepare for the beatification of Mister Splashypants, Stephen Colbert, and that kid who wants us to leave Brittney alone.
in Foreign Policy: The Top 100 Public Intellectuals

Posted May 05, 2008

this thread has been deleted. But there's more over here. And anyone who wants more can always click the box in their profile that says "I hereby agree that I am at least 18 years of age, and that I am willing to receive adult related content."
in NO PORN! -> Redtube.com hacked!

Posted May 05, 2008

http://thepage.time.com/2008/05/03/you-cant-make-this-up/
in Filly Eight Belles breaks down after 2nd-place Derby finish

Posted May 05, 2008

Yahoo! closed Friday at $28.67. Before Microsoft announced its initial interest, it was trading around $19. Ballmer's final offer was $33. Where do you think it closes today?
in Breaking: Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid; Walks Away From Deal

Posted May 05, 2008

Say what you will, it's excellent positioning for HRC, and makes a good deal of sense as such. Economists have been on shakier and shakier ground in recent years. They have the misfortune to aspire to be scientists that practice their art on the evening news, in a domain that regular people hold near and dear. Their predictive powers are notoriously poor, because they're always constructing models to accurately model the past. And they only deliver bad news these days! Slapping the economists in the face is a low-risk strategy for putting daylight between yourself and the elitist chablis-sippers in a hurry.
in Clinton – Economic Reality is Elitist

Posted May 03, 2008

"Git off me, yer crushin my cigarettes"
in Seal attacks penguin [NSFW]

Posted May 02, 2008

The makers of porn will have to be very careful to obscure the fact that the actors are drinking a Coke or driving a Mercedes. It would be terrible if the audience were inspired to drink a Coke, and thereby fooled into objectifying the people on screen in the "wrong way."
in Scandinavian split on sexist ads

Posted May 01, 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLNLYL24qUA&feature=related at 2:25. god bless alton brown.
in Deep fried turkey troubles

Posted May 01, 2008

and so is john mccain, apparently. http://www.npr.org/blogs/news/2008/05/senate_mcain_is_absolutely_pos_1.html?ft=1
in Pammie USA

Posted May 01, 2008

whew, that's a load off my mind
in President McCain

Posted May 01, 2008

who knows, maybe they did!
in Dude, Where's My Recession?

Posted May 01, 2008

I paid $4.05 in Greenwich, CT the other day.
in Gas at $5.00 in the U.S. - betting pool open

Posted May 01, 2008

wow. simply wow.

in Hilary Clinton is the New Ralph Nader?

Posted Apr 30, 2008

On the other hand, some people are taking good advantage of that fact. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiq_xdooaSw
in How We're Wrecking Our Feet With Every Step We Take

Posted Apr 29, 2008

http://insureblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/finally-transparency-cash.html
in Patients Can Get $100 to Reveal Hospital Bills

Posted Apr 29, 2008

I would have to get some face-tightening plastic surgery before opening it up on the open road, lest my jowls flap and obstruct my vision (see the top gear video at the end of that story for a somewhat unsettling visual demonstration)
in Ariel Atom (want it want it want it)

Posted Apr 28, 2008

I paid $4 at the pump today, for the first time ever. It felt odd, remote. I remembered what it felt like so that I could tell the grandkids what it was like. I was wearing a blue sweater that day. It was raining.
in Good for You, Bad for the Economy

Posted Apr 26, 2008

er, I know it's kool-aide, but I want another cup.
in Gin, Television, and Social Surplus - Here Comes Everybody

Posted Apr 26, 2008

A little creative paperwork, and the workplace will absorb the worst of it.
in Downgrading guests to attendees

Posted Apr 26, 2008

I wonder what the oddsmakers in vegas are giving for this scenario. Intriguing!
in Should Obama drop out now to ensure a win in 2012?

Posted Apr 25, 2008

Any space junkies (like myself) in the Concord NH area shouldn't miss this one.
in Tonight at the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium

Posted Apr 25, 2008

I always go to these movies with a friend, to make sure someone turns my brain back on afterward.
in Bruce Willis is Shooting a Scifi Movie Right Now in Woburn...

Posted Apr 25, 2008

Time to take the cotton our of your ears, perhaps.
in Ballmer: You want XP, we'll keep XP

Posted Apr 24, 2008

that's no moon ...
in Comcast: AT&T's U-Verse is messing with our network

Posted Apr 23, 2008

reading this article made me wish for a modern-day sequel to "A Confederacy of Dunces." it reads like an excerpt.
in Drunk Darth Vader's Jedi assault

Posted Apr 23, 2008

so far so good it's playing out just as they predict in the video.
in How Hillary can still win

Posted Apr 23, 2008

Now I really feel like making up t-shirts that say "far-left, atheist, elite, pansy Godless snob fraud."
in Andrew Sullivan: Karl Rove Wins the Pennsylvania Primary

Posted Apr 23, 2008

all we know is the number of people who changed party. but the "republicans for hillary" explanation seems plausible as an explanation. so too, to some extent, would "independents for obama." so we can't be sure without better numbers.
in Competitive race in Pennsylvania - CNN.com

Posted Apr 23, 2008

why, I came to babbledog. of course!
in Best Election Night Results

Posted Apr 22, 2008

ah, wonkette.
in Five Easy Steps To Predicting Pennsylvania [Pennsylvania Analysis]

Posted Apr 22, 2008

the results won'y be in for .. well, for hours. when do the polls close? 7pm?
in Pennsylvania Registered Dems: By The Numbers

Posted Apr 21, 2008

..but what's this about the granite state?
in Drudge calls PA for Hillary

Posted Apr 20, 2008

interesting. anyone else sense this? I guess you don't ask a columnist or PR person what the "right" level of buzz should be. Perhaps the previous level was, in fact, "too much?"
in John Dvorak's Second Opinion: Tech-sector buzz goes silent

Posted Apr 20, 2008

iceberg's descendants hail new discovery; ancestor "completely vindicated"in sinking mystery
in Titanic was a riveting disaster

Posted Apr 20, 2008

wow, wonder who's rolling up sleeper cells
in Man found in Lady Bird Lake was teacher, FBI target

Posted Apr 18, 2008

there's a connection here to the man who had a knife in his back and didn't know it, but I can't figure out what it is
in Robert Reich's Blog

Posted Apr 18, 2008

that may have been what caused the earthquake? http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D904CC980&show_article=1
in That's it! - Economist decides to stop covering Clinton campaign.

Posted Apr 18, 2008

I know, taking the bus is miserable.
in you know, i think you've got a knife in your back.

Posted Apr 18, 2008

fake confirmed by the Yale Office of Public Affairs. http://www.yale.edu/opa
in Senior Project: "I better get an A, is all I'm saying"

Posted Apr 16, 2008

OH, PAW PAW! WE HARDLY KNEW YE!
in Martha Stewart's dog dies - CNN.com

Posted Apr 16, 2008

mixed!? i'd rather drink moxie
in I've got Moxie!

Posted Apr 16, 2008

Interesting perspective collision here. Government suit-and-tie intellectuals construct policy targets and add rules to auction to try to bring about the intended results. Google sees the wink-wink, nudge-nudge that's been built into the system, identifies the minimally painful way to exploit the backdoor left by policy wonks, exploits it for the greater good, walks away happy. All happy? Maybe. Someone out there might have paid more (a lot more) and that lost money belongs to the taxpayers. By setting it free, maybe we all gain more than we lost. But then why have an auction at all?
in Google "gamed" spectrum auction? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Posted Apr 16, 2008

this seems like a real grass-roots cause that people might consider supporting. I wonder what percentage of the electorate orders enough online to get angry about it...
in Tax-free Internet shopping days could be numbered

Posted Apr 16, 2008

overblown. pfft. you know, I know another man who started making zombie movies, and ended up changing the free world. that man's name .. is Nelson Mandela. And now you know ..... the rest ... of the story.
in "The greatest technology in the history of humanity is community."

Posted Apr 16, 2008

messages were working
in Facebook is Dead. I'm Not Being Facetious

Posted Apr 15, 2008

I plan to enjoy nutter butters while I can, since apparently I'm going to spend my golden years trapping squirrels and digging up all those root vegetables.
in Alternate sources of food: advice for dealing with a severe food crisis

Posted Apr 14, 2008

The only thing I thought was a little weird was when they offered to walk me through my New Hampshire tax return. Hm, says I. NH has no income tax. If I have to file some kind of weird consulting-income business enterprise tax return or something, I better find out now. So they walk me through the questionnaire, about 2 minutes, and sure enough, I don't have to file anything. But when I'm checking out, there's an extra $29.99 fee for my state return :) They did allow me to simply delete the charge before paying, but it seemed a little weird.
in Finished your taxes?

Posted Apr 14, 2008

Only fitting for two former Democrat presidents to deliver the bad news.
in Carter, Gore Set to Deliver Clinton “Coup de Grace”

Posted Apr 13, 2008

I guess it comes down to 'rudeness' -- the failure to answer tolerance with respect. Rudeness is a visible externality, a symptom of people who enjoy the freedom without consideration for others. By the time your parks are full of sex-in-the-bushes and hippies vomiting up mushrooms, the majority bourgeois with kids and strollers and picnics (guilty as charged) are going to rescind their offer of tolerance.

I predict that this will reach a new equilibrium that respects public conservatism -- restricting advertisement and open sale, say, in favor of just-in-time delivery of all your favorite vices to your home for private consumption. The Internet means that we don't have to have public flesh- and hash-markets if we don't feel like tolerating the externalities.

in Is Amsterdam's wild-life going up in smoke and getting bagged for good?

Posted Apr 13, 2008

I, for one, hope that his case causes fatal and expensive crashes in the software of all the hospital administrators and insurance claims processors he comes in contact with during labor and delivery.
in Pregnant man from Oregon to appear on Oprah show

Posted Apr 12, 2008

three people have already told me that they had to do the 'mandingo' thing to get a babbledog invite. which is funny, cause we don't have an invite system.
in Is this level grind?

Posted Apr 11, 2008

"Jenna Schaal-O’Connor, a 20-year-old sophomore who is majoring in cognitive science and linguistics, said philosophy had other perks. She said she found many male philosophy majors interesting and sensitive."
in The life examined

Posted Apr 11, 2008

"glass shards" are missing from mouthfeel after intensive lobbying by boston-area brewers
in Beer Flavor Wheel

Posted Apr 11, 2008

for context about SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation), see also: http://www.thefirstamendment.org/antislappresourcecenter.html
in neurodiversity: write a blog, earn a subpoena

Posted Apr 10, 2008

get off the couch! not on the couch! Bad dog!
in "Why i deleted my twitter account"

Posted Apr 07, 2008

Well worth listening to. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Word-of-Mouth/29159200256
in Trendspotters

Posted Apr 07, 2008

there are lots of situations in the world where grid power is turned into thermal energy to keep things warm. it might as well do computational work on its way toward max entropy! if someone made clothing out of computational elements, I would wear it happily all winter.
in Diseconomies of Scale -- Condonet

Posted Apr 07, 2008

That's why I recommend Babbledog -- a patented, low-impact intellectual workout that exercises every major mental muscle group without the pain and lethal risks associated with other kinds of online activity. It changed my life!
Use only as directed. Consult a physician before using this or any other participatory online community. Results not typical. Some participants have received an honorarium. Neither the FDA nor the FCC has evaluated these claims.
in In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop - New York Times

Posted Apr 06, 2008

There's an old saying: "Don't ask the barber if you need a haircut unless you want a haircut." We have an educational establishment that seeks to shed blame for its own massive failures, justify its bloated inefficiencies, and prop up its own "professional, scientific" self-image. No wonder all the kids end up coded.
in A New Trial of Motherhood: Keeping Up With the Diagnoses

Posted Apr 05, 2008

yeah. doesn't have to be that way -- cf Botswana as counterexample. http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=4561&edition=2&ttl=20080406001313
in Navajo Nation likely to lose Internet service

Posted Apr 05, 2008

I was thinking, instead, of the time I wore my osama bin laden tshirt to the airport by mistake. boy, that was a wacky adventure!
in Exclusive: Chinese police kill eight after opening fire on monks and Tibet protesters - Times Online

Posted Apr 05, 2008

The lesson of the late-nineties dot-com bubble: it's ok to take short-term losses in order to build your brand. It pays in the long run, unless you get wiped out by the next generation of viral hotness that nobody had predicted.
in TaxProf Blog: Clinton Releases 2001-2006 Tax Returns

Recent Responses by Jim Cowie